


Sympathy Fuck

by Big_Rock



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Marineford, Will of D, implied past Luffy/Ace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Rock/pseuds/Big_Rock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Marineford, Luffy grieves, Law joins in, and Rayleigh Silvers regrets everything.</p><p>No one makes good decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sympathy Fuck

“He’s gone,” Law said, talking to the quiet body in his clinic bed. “He died saving you. It’ll be a waste if you stay like this.”

Luffy remained unresponsive to Law’s logic, his eyes flickering under his lids, watching a dream that he couldn’t wake from.

Law left.

***

The straw hat in the corner mocked him. It had more life and presence than his patient, waiting patiently on a hook, bright and cheerful and everything that Luffy wasn’t.

“Your hat shouldn’t be livelier than you,” Law said, poking Luffy’s foot with his pen. Luffy’s toes curled, and his leg twitched, but he didn’t wake up. Law hadn’t expected him to.

“Your girl is practically tearing her hair out over you,” he added, trying to get through to whatever part of Luffy had asked Hancock to marry him. Law didn’t get it, but Luffy must have found something good in her. Probably. If not, Law was betting on her breasts being the culprit, because Hancock had truly superior breasts. “Silvers _Rayleigh_ is camped out on my deck, waiting for you to wake up.”

Luffy was as silent as his brother’s grave. “You’re making me look bad.” Law sighed and cracked his neck, watching Luffy for any sign of life beyond the steady rise and fall of his chest.

***

“He drank all my booze, and now my crew is grumbling, but I can’t get more because I can’t leave here without being attacked by Amazons. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Luffy.” Law spoke quietly, modulating his voice so that it was hidden by the sound of Hancock fighting with Rayleigh.

Luffy didn’t reply. Law got the distinct impression that he wasn’t listening, which was getting to be a common theme in Law’s life. “They’re fighting over who gets to sit here and watch you breathe, you know. It’s kind of sad.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d met a sane pirate crew, but Boa and Silvers were mad as hatters in an entirely novel way. “Means you’re pretty special, all these people loving you. I bet if your crew was here, this room would never be empty.”

***

Luffy healed. Luffy didn’t wake up.

Boa Hancock snuck onboard Law’s ship at odd hours, scaring Bepo senseless every time. Law was deeply sick of finding her at Luffy’s bedside weeping over their ill-fated love, but he admired her dedication.

Silvers Rayleigh had taken the much more direct route of never leaving, commandeering Law’s bedroom and wandering into the infirmary at odd hours of the night to hold conversations with Luffy’s hat. Law didn’t dare say anything.

“Have you considered waking up?” Law asked Luffy. The other pirate’s nails had half-moons of rust-red under them, and Law suspected it was Luffy's brother’s blood. He took a second to rub the washcloth over the tips of Luffy’s fingers, but it didn’t help.

“It’s not that I’m worried,” Law lied, “but that you’re making me look like a terrible doctor. My professional pride suffers.”

Luffy’s hand twitched in his and Law jumped, startled. “Can you hear me, Luffy?”

Luffy's breathing changed, quickening, then hitching, then dissolving into ragged sobs. "Ace?" Luffy asked, but he already knew, the grief so hot and fresh that it was impossible that he didn't. 

There was nothing Law could say to make it better.

"Ace?" Luffy's hand curled around his, fingers looping around his wrist like the tendrils of a climbing vine, and Law sat still, allowed Luffy whatever small comfort he could take from him. "Ace."

Luffy's eyes opened, dark and empty and hurting so badly that Law wished he could stitch his heart whole as easily as he did Luffy's wounds. "Ace?" he breathed, voice unsteady, turning his head until he saw Law.

Law expected disappointment. He didn't expect Luffy.

"Ace," Luffy said, suddenly calm. "I was worried." The tendrils around Law's wrist tightened, dragging him toward Luffy until Law had half-fallen into his bed. "Sleep with me?"

"I'm not him."

"You are." There was knowledge in Luffy's eyes, and a grief that was not gone. "Come to bed, Ace. You're tired."

Law had one thought—that Boa Hancock would kill him dead—before the immovable force of Luffy's will bowled him over.

Luffy's arms tangled around him as soon as Law settled on the sheets beside him, solid as sea stone. "Ace," he said again, burying his face against Law's chest.

"I'm not Ace," Law said, very quietly so Luffy could pretend he hadn't heard if he wanted to. "Ace died."

"I know," Luffy said, his voice dull and muffled by Law's shirt. He hiccupped once and the spreading wet spot on Law's chest told him that Luffy was crying. "I know, I know, I know," Luffy repeated, a litany of misery that hurt more than it should.

Law must have gotten attached to his hopeless coma patient somewhere along the line, because his eyes were hot and there was a prickling pressure in his sinuses. "Luffy?" 

"Ace," Luffy replied, and it still wasn't Law's name.

"Ace is gone, Luffy," Law said. "I'm Law."

"I _know_. I'm not dumb, Ace." Luffy's breath was hot against Law's chest, his hands gripping the back of Law's shirt. Law couldn't escape if he tried. "I know you're—"

Law hushed Luffy, tangling his fingers in his hair. "It's fine." It wasn't, of course. It couldn't be.

"I love you," Luffy said. "I do, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, it was hard to miss." He hadn't known him, but if Portgas had been any kind of brother at all... "He loved you too, Luffy."

"Fuck— _fuck,_ " Luffy said the curse like he'd never spoken it before, like it was newly discovered but deeply right. He rolled against Law, moving in a way that didn't feel entirely human, muscles hard and strange under his skin. "It wasn't supposed to be this way." His mouth against Law's neck, scraping teeth over Law's collarbone.

"How was it supposed to go?" Law asked, tugging Luffy's head back, pulling his mouth away. It wasn't right, them doing this. Not with his patient, anyway. Luffy's tongue flicked out and licked his cheek from over a foot away, but Law had standards for himself. "No." 

Luffy made a noise, utterly raw, and Law loosened his grip on his hair, let his patient sink against him so he didn't have to see his eyes. "I _love_ you," Luffy whispered into the hollows of Law's neck.

“He loves you back,” Law said, sure of it. He’d seen the pictures. No one died like that for anything short of love. “He loves you back, Luffy.”

Luffy wept, tears dripping through Law’s shirt. “Sorry,” Luffy whispered. “I tried, I’m so sorry, Ace. I’m so—” His voice cracked, sliding higher and younger. “Sorry-sorry- _sorry_.”

Law closed his eyes and remembered the weight of his own mourning, felt it again inside his heart, new and fresh in sympathy to Luffy’s. The terrible thing about grief was that it never died, never truly faded. What they’d lost was lost forever.

The sobs grew less ragged, and Luffy’s breathing slowed, exhaustion easing him into sleep. The tension in him didn’t ease, grief following him all the way down. 

Law’s eyes were wet when he blinked, tears staining him. He wasn’t Luffy’s brother. He couldn’t be. If things were different...

Things remained as they were, Law’s wishing for naught. Luffy’s brother was dead, and Law couldn’t fix dead.

The door creaked open, Rayleigh Silvers rightfully assuming that Law didn’t have the balls to call him on not knocking. “He’s woken, then." 

Law glared at the ceiling, safe in the knowledge that Silvers was looking at the hat and not him. He’d lost control of the situation somewhere along the line—weeks back, really—and hadn’t dared try and take it back. “Yeah.”

“I heard.” Rayleigh’s focus swung from the battered old hat, landing on Law, and it was like being under a painfully bright spotlight. Haki so strong it could stop a man’s heart filled the space between them with silent potential, and Law’s breath hitched in his chest.

“Ah.” He’d lost the thoughts he’d wanted to use, washed away under the force of the old man’s attention. Law’s fingers were cold, splayed open over Luffy’s back, and he thought—nothing. Grief welled in him, strong as a tidal current.

“The Will of D does not die, Doctor. It rises again and again, and if you are not careful—” Silvers paused, looking at Luffy. “You may find you are not quite yourself.”

“I won't—I can't let that happen." Law hadn't felt so spectacularly mundane in years. In the face of monsters like Luffy and Rayleigh Silvers, his own goals felt like not enough, like he was making pointless edits to a tiny corner of the world. He was both feet into them, though, sunk too deep to be swept away.

Silvers looked away, turning back to the hat, and Law could breathe again. “Keep your dreams close. Men like these two are dangerous, for all that they do not intend it.”

Law swallowed, spit flooding his mouth, and dared to ask, “These two?”

The hat shifted, a rustle of straw, and no breeze at all to have done it. “Dead and maybe gone, maybe not. It’s not for people like us to know.” Silvers cracked open a flask, and the scent of rum filled the room. “We never—” emotion choked his words, and a flash of pain made his face crumple. “Us, we never get to know.”

Luffy snuffled in his ear, the beat of his heart strong and slow under Law’s hand. The kid was crazy, and yet.... And yet. “Did you know him?”  _Is he still here?_

“My Captain’s son?” Silvers asked, still staring at the hat. “No. He did not come to me, and I didn’t go to him.” Pain made him look older, a grief that Law felt echo inside himself.

“I’m sorry,” Law said. 

“So am I.” Silvers drank, draining the flask, and Law caught sight of the Jolly Roger etched on the front. “I thought that there would be time.”

Law had thought the same, and the injustice of it still left him furious. “I know. I’ve known that.”

“To never having enough time, then,” Silver said, raising a new flask to the hat. “And its bitch of a sister, having far too much.”

His arm was asleep, Luffy was drooling, and his heart hurt. “Drinking’s bad for your liver,” Law muttered, staring at the ceiling when Silvers’ terrifying focus fell on him again. “Well it is,” he added, when the silence grew too deep.

“Brat.” Silvers ruffled Law’s hair, then did Luffy’s for good measure. “I’ll go.”

Law nodded, and watched him leave. The hat shivered on its hook, like it was saying goodbye.

“We’re all crazy, aren’t we?” he asked Luffy.

Luffy was asleep, and he didn’t reply.

Law was tired, hadn’t sleep _well_ since Marineford, too restless to make it into the deeper levels of sleep. He’d saved one, should have gotten two. (It’d have been impossible, even had he made it before, but Law kept dreaming about hiding both of them under the waves).

Law drifted off. Dreamt of nothing, this time.

He woke up to Luffy’s hands on him, Luffy’s tears on him, and Law sighed, dragged Luffy down and kissed him until he stopped shaking. “My name is Trafalgar Law.”

“Trafalaga,”Luffy agreed, his eyes huge and red-rimmed.

It wasn’t like Law hadn’t done worse. “Close enough." 

Luffy was rough, even trying not to be, but it wasn’t like Law hadn’t endured worse.

“I’m sorry,” Luffy said, and Law waved it off, his toes curled in the sheets and sweat dripping down his chest. The tears leaking from the corners of his eyes had nothing to do with Luffy.

“Am I hurting you?” Luffy asked, later, when Law’s breathing was harsh and fast, his lip caught between his teeth, and his legs were spread _wide_.

“I’ve only got this to give,” Law replied, “and I’m sorry that it isn’t more.” His skin sang where Luffy touched him, blood beating through his heart in frantic welcome. It hurt, because _of course it did_ , but Law had suffered worse for less.

Luffy shook his head, his thumbs wiping up Law’s tears, frowning so hard that Law worried, but he didn’t stop. “I love you,” Luffy whispered, and he didn’t need to name his departed brother for Law to know the words weren’t meant for him.

Law took it anyway.


End file.
